My Ruth Bader Ginsburg Take-Aways

"Sarah, you need to sleep" He said. That's when my blood stopped. I sat down. Shocked. I was trying so hard to swallow back everything I had just spit in a raised voice. That wasn't me. Despite being Meru and Kisii, that wasn't my normal way of handling anger. Back home, my 3-days active small brown eyes were not obeying my close orders. The only remaining trick in my basket was a boring movie to make me sleep. This is where Justice Ruth comes in. (Looking forward to reading her book)

If you have read any of my blogs, you know I am guilty of overworking. My last article here on LinkedIn was talking about the number of things I do in just one day. One of my iListen callers wanted to know how they could set their balls rolling too. Thing is, working is my escape.

At this point in my life, I feel that I have done everything that I wanted to do in life. There remains a hole though of transforming science journalism and diagnostic research. My accomplishments make me feel entitled to jobs, fellowships and grants that I apply to. When I don't get them, I feel demotivated. Instead of handling it, I feel that space with my other desires. The desire of knowing more.

For three days straight, I was engulfed in my phone, computer and my hardcover exercise book endowed with three different colours of pens doing different stuff, moving from one thing to the next. I was cancelling dates. I had neglected the movie-watching business for months now.

We were already discussing with my best friend on when could go out with the little we had saved and just absorb nature. Both of us have worked hard and called to prestigious girls schools in the country, got an A- and enjoyed biochemistry, passing with a second class upper. We are both doing self-sponsored masters programmes in diverse fields. Endowed with intelligence, beauty and integrity, We are still jobless...scratch that, hustling doing all kinds of short-term non-satisfactory jobs.

The positive side of this is the manhattan-chicken-dates we went to, sharing a quarter chicken while reading for an advanced metabolism test. My sleep was needed now and a tomorrow date wasn't helping. Took some few coins from my latest small pay for show max. Being someone who is really choosy on the kind of content I wanted to devour, sci-fi, comedy and action with no concrete making-sense kind of storyline were not going to appease me. I chose Biography and This ON THE BASIS OF SEX title really screamed.

1 minute in. Law stuff, mmh, let's see. I am not the trailer person so...Hoping to fall asleep due to un-interesting law stuff, I was hooked.

Take-aways

• Don't put career over family. This wasn't' because she moved from Harvard to Columbia just to be with her husband after a cancer scare, It was because of how the husband was very present. Despite having his law career happening, he cooked and was present for his family.
• Marry an Intelligent partner. Ok, there are two sides to this. One, if Mr Ginstburg wasn't intelligent, he would have seen house chores as a woman's responsibility rather than a parent's responsibility. Two, if Mrs Ginstburg wasn't intelligent, she couldn't have been able to be one of the few women in law school or even crazier, be able to attend two classes first and second year at the same time when the husband was sick.
• Rejection doesn't mean you are not good enough. After passing with flying colours, she couldn't secure a job. She went job-hunting in firms like crazy. The only one she could secure was a teaching job, which wasn't her passion at the time. This didn't stop her from practising law and winning a big case on gender discrimination. Her professorship and resilience built on her being a world icon celebrated today after her passing.
• Everyone has person-specific-Timeline. We get the pressure of succeeding at a certain age, getting married at a certain age, getting children in a certain manner yet we are all different people. She was appointed justice by president young enough to be her child. If it wasn't her, His wife wouldn't be empowered enough to empower Barack who would later make her voice more powerful. Let things play out their own way. No pressure. (I am guilty of this, esp the career part)
• I have forgotten the other one. Watch it yourself and you might borrow your person-specific-lessons/takeaways. Reader? Read her story

I didn't know her but her story lifted me when I was down. It made me sleep in peace with a positive filled soul. Waking up to a more me-self and going on a bestie's dates. The first thing I asked myself was, what was making me that angry earlier? As we passed by my other friend's place to apologise, I laughed at myself instead of God like my namesake.

Twitter: @sarahnyancheran Sarahnyancheranyakeri.co.ke sciencecast.co.ke sadie.co.ke ilisten.art.blog